Hi, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the situations where you'd want to hold forward by the choke on Badlands.

Holding forward on badlands corner ?
From what I can gather from stv's, it's primarily when you're about to push (falling out from mid against an uber and keeping your med alive etc), or at a disadvantage and want to force the other teams pop as soon as possible while keeping your med further back towards grey bridge. But then I a scrim, and I see teams holding up there for some other reason, so I'm confused as to what the general situations are where you'd want to do it.

This also feeds into another question I have.

Knowing when to hold with disadvantage and when to fall ?
Whenever you win a fight, but come out at a player disadvantage, under what conditions would you want to hold up by the chokes and just try and deny the other team entry? For example, we frequently win Snakewater mid but end up at a 1 player disadvantage, so hold soldier/scout up by the chokes and try and put out enough pressure that our team has time to respawn. Obviously it depends on the map/if one med went down or not, but assuming both meds are up, would it be generally acceptable to try and hold them out, or would the number disadvantage just be too great?

Thanks in advance for any responses

hatchet

Holding the badlands corner is a legitimate place to setup a defense in any stalemate situation (even advantages). it is good because there are only 2 routes and 3 chokes for the attacking team, So if they try to push the mainway chokes you should be easily able do good intial damage or force an early uber. Implicit in a corner hold is having resupply covered as well by usually 2 players.

Holding corner however is not a simple ABC hold. If you hold too close at the actual corner you can leave you medic vulnerable to soldiers bombing around to pop or kill him without ay way to use that uber. However if you hold too far back youlet a team walk around the choke for free and turn your defense into an awkward mid range spam fest where you only have slight slope advantage if that.

Alternatively if tests your defense by quickly probing between the two routes (pushing resupply, forcing the combo to retrest to stone bridge to support, then returning mainway etc) you let you hold splinter easily due to the large distance between the two chokes at corner and resupply/house/valley you are trying to cover. Grey bridge holds again attempt to solve this problem however if done carelessly is again just plonking your team together in an open ground area giving up alot of free ground to your opposition.

What you actually want to do is keep the medic back enough out of bombing range and keep soldiers, scouts and stickies up close enough to the chokes to apply potenital pressure should they peek and to gain information. Then you need to be responsive and mobile enough to be ready at the relevant chokes your opposition wants to push with the bulk of your numbers, while still spotting the others for random scouts etc.

If you dont have uber and you have player disadvantage of a soldier or worse i would probably not recommend over committing to a corner hold, because while yielding in ground is always bad (the whole objective it to take ground and capture points) the defenders advantage will not outweigh the player if they push into you agressively and united on one front vs your split hold. With uber you gain alot more leeway as a tool to buy time for respawners and re-adjust a support based on where they commit.

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But then I a scrim, and I see teams holding up there for some other reason, so I'm confused as to what the general situations are where you'd want to do it.

Theyre probably being bad if the numbers dont quite weight up as i said above. Try bombing/suiciding a soldier around corner at them to punish bad positioning.

re: general holding

I suppose this was covered above a little but your question is a bit hard to answer concretely for every map. In general you push with advantage and defend with disavantage, and the location you decide to defend at should meet the criteria that the defenders advantage of positioning allows you to even the odds and that you arnt risking the death of your medic or demoman should they choose to use uber to push into you (ie have escape paths and/or counter uber.

Assuming alive medics and equal ubers you should usually be holding your ground (somewhere good) if you ~1 player down and bailing if your ~3+ down. This doesnt mean you sohuld retreat with 3 players alive, maybe they only have 4 alive and no demoman. There are definietly chokes where you can defend 6v4 or 5v3 no ubers (granary mid crates), but in most cases this isnt possible. Without a demoman alive holding forward is mostly a bad idea. Always consider your respawn timing when deciding to hold a place with uber charge as maybe that uber will phase out just as they arrive for an ideal hold and push, or maybe they wont come in time and you get swarmed.

Whenever youre anywhere as a team make sure everyone has the same gameplan.

Are you holding with the intent of defending the ground and making them pop uber first?
Or are you holding with medic back safe and the intent to try and pop their uber perhaps saccing one soldier in the process but everyone else ready to full speed retreat and live?
Or are you meant to be pushing or meant to be dropping fast?

Make realtime judgements and use your head. It is usually easy to work out for anyone what is correct with the scoreboard; most teams fail to even take the first step in evaulating what theyre mindlessly doing and consequently get caught out and throw away small windows of free advantage and territory.

hatchet

Should always take corner if you are on even terms, there is no reason to give up position. You cannot hold corner/spire if the other team has demoman advantage. You will get flanked and beaten if the other team has overwhelmed resupply. In either of those situations it's prudent to fall to upper lobby to forward hold, or to last if you have even uber.

Greybridge is a deathtrap, hold from either balcony or pocket if corner is not an option. You won't achieve anything by standing on greybridge and watching the opponent walk around corner and spam down at the lobby choke from high ground.

Cole

you should always hold as much position as possible. thats what the game is about!

If its even and the other teams in middle you control resupply and corner (main way)

if you hold really close to the choke its going to be easier to defend against teams that try push around the corner but harder to defend against teams that push from resupply or try to take resupply from you.

Bowt

Should always take corner if you are on even terms, there is no reason to give up position. You cannot hold corner/spire if the other team has demoman advantage. You will get flanked and beaten if the other team has overwhelmed resupply. In either of those situations it's prudent to fall to upper lobby to forward hold, or to last if you have even uber.

Greybridge is a deathtrap, hold from either balcony or pocket if corner is not an option. You won't achieve anything by standing on greybridge and watching the opponent walk around corner and spam down at the lobby choke from high ground.

I think you can attempt to hold spire if the other team has demoman advantage. If you just fell out that would be pretty weak

I dont think it matters if the other team has control of resupply when you are holding spire from balc or pocket

yuki

I think you can attempt to hold spire if the other team has demoman advantage. If you just fell out that would be pretty weak

I dont think it matters if the other team has control of resupply when you are holding spire from balc or pocket

I think its good to have medic on greybridge when forward defending

You're probably right about being able to defend spire without a demo, i just know it's a pretty difficult thing to do.

Yeah only referring to still holding corner if the enemy have overwhelmed resupply, resupply doesn't matter too much if you're holding pocket or balcony. Just need someone to spot dropdown so nobody can leak behind is all.

Medic standing on greybridge is a very safe position from jumping soldiers/scouts around corner, very true. I'm just referring to teams who sit on greybridge defensively, but then they don't react to enemies walking around corner and then they start copping a lot of damage without dealing any in return.